More Gustav Goodness

I'm slowly losing the power to my laptop, as I've had to use it for work-related things during the past few hours. We lost power at The Times-Picayune, but we have set up what is known as a "bunker" in the photo department, and we are putting together a paper from there.

The paper won't be printed tonight, but tomorrow morning, afternoonish tomorrow.

It's been one adventurous day, as power went out while I was doing a graphic, but luckily, I could easily get it off my desktop by taking my tower to the photo department where there is power.

Around 10 a.m. central time, I left the office with a few other employees, and ended up driving to the Industrial Canal, where they were having a surge scare.

Luckily, everything is cool there, but for awhile there, people were concerned the floodwall would breach again.

The streets located right outside of the canal began filling up with roughly three or four inches of water when we arrived. It wasn't anything to be concerned with, but it was still quite a site to see rushing water near a floodwall.

I'm spending another night at the newspaper, and hopefully can go home tomorrow night to see how the apartment held up. I really just want to take a shower, though.

Sorry for the lack of updates, but with a lack of power, my hands have been tied.

At the office with Gustav

My work area, complete with suitcase, pillow and boxes of food under my desk.

Oh, and some delicious water.

One of the kayaks near the security desk on the first floor.

Hells yeah we do.

The hurricane-shuttered front of The Times-Picayune office building, as Gustav's

outer bands begin reaching the city.

Gustav's outer bands.

I've been at the downtown Times-Picayune office for about four hours now. We decided to publish a paper tomorrow, and will attempt to publish in the coming days.

I've done few minor things for tomorrow's print edition, including a slightly modified tracking map. The rain has started, and various tornado warnings have been issued as Gustav's outer bands begin reaching us.

Right now, we're preparing things to react to the various effects Gustav will have on places such as Houma, LA.

General Gustavness

As of Sunday around 4 or 5 p.m., central time, I will be moving into the downtown Times-Picayune office in New Orleans to cover Hurricane Gustav as it approaches our coastline.

If you can't get a hold of me, check back here, as I should be able to update this throughout the day(s) as circumstances allow.

Starting tomorrow, The Times-Picayune becomes a web-only publication until further notice. Keep update-to-date on what's going on around me at www.nola.com.

I don't know? Are they?

As I was perusing the latest headlines at the always useful fark.com, I came across a story about how Florida is becoming the nation's leader in teacher/student sex cases. Being the statistics whore that I am, I Googled teacher/student sex case statistics to see if there were further numbers to back it up.

There hasn't been much initially that I found, but I did stumble across this gem and had to post it. If you don't get the horrible, dark humor behind the headline below "Teachers' Pets", then there's a problem with your sense-of-humor.

Click here for a good, dirty laugh

When random web ads attack...

This is a screen grab I took from CNN.com the other night. Click on the picture to view the screen grab in full size, read the story, then read the advertisement under "Ads by Google."

It's definitely some good 'ol dark humor, that's for sure.

Cougar? More like a Mufasa.

Cougar (n): a large, tawny cat, Felis concolor, of North and South America: now greatly reduced in number and endangered in some areas.

or....

Cougar (n): An older woman who frequents clubs in order to score with a much younger man.

Luckily, an encounter with the former didn't happen while I was out Saturday, but unfortunately, the latter did. Typically, cougar's are attractive, single females whose age ranges anywhere from the mid-40's to late 50's. They go to bars alone, or in a small pack of similar cougars. They'll get just drunk enough to make googly eyes at younger men, but stay sober enough to drive you both back to their mansion that their five ex-husbands are paying for.

Usually, an encounter with a cougar is every guy's MILF fantasy. However, the key to being a cougar is possessing some sort of trait that younger men would want to go after, i.e., good looks. This isn't being shallow or vain on the male's part, but if a guy is going to go out on a limb and get with a much older woman, she better have some sort of physical trait that draws us in.

If she looks like she just did a line of coke before firing up her meth lab, then we have a problem. The wannabe cougar at the bar on Saturday night looked like she might be under the influence of one or more of these. My friends and I were sitting on a couch close to her, but far enough away so we didn't feel like we would contract something...like rabies.

She was making odd gestures at my friend and I, giving us a "come here" hand signal and shrugging her shoulders when we didn't advance. She was by herself, which a good-looking, subtle cougar can pull off, but when you're more erratic and awkward than Rex Grossman in the pocket, we're going to have some problems.

She then moved slightly closer to us, staring at us before she covered up her face with her scarf, which is something a cougar should never do. Or anyone for that matter. "Why is she covering up her face," I asked, but then it soon became apparent.

She was taking a short nap, of course. Or coming in and out of her cocaine high, either one. She then started talking to the young guys on the couch by ours, and informed the one that she was, "incredibly horny," as we would later find out.

Rule number two of cougarship: don't pounce before sealing the deal. I.E., don't be that forward until you've actually talked to the person for more than 30 seconds. She then got on her phone, most likely to call her drug dealer/late-night hook-up.

Shortly after a phone conversation where we're not sure if she was actually talking to anyone, a guy that looked like Bret Michaels in about 40 years showed up, and in minutes, they were making out. They were a match made in Heaven. They then had a deep conversation, probably trading meth recipes.

She failed a being a cougar and ended up going home with someone her own age, much like when a guy tries to pick up the hottest girl at the bar, then ends up going home with the hot chick's not-so-good looking friend that is there to make all of her friends look more attractive.

To my knowledge, there isn't a term for failing to be a cougar. So, I hereby knight wannabe cougars as Mufasas, the old, male lion from the Lion King series. It only seems appropriate.

Some random shiznit

After a long, tedious and tiring 11 day process, I am finally settled and officially relocated to Louisiana. After the cable guy (who was incredibly friendly and came out on a day off) arrived to hook me up to the outside world of the NFL, Tia Tequila and endless reality shows, my relocation became official.

All I need now is a DVD stand because I forget my old one at home, unfortunately. It's not important, because I was adamant to squeeze my life into three Office Depot paper boxes, and I was able to. Except for clothes, that is.

Anywho, I've been doing daily stuff at work during my first week back, and generally getting used to the entire process again. It didn't take long, as it felt like I never left. It was sort of surreal, right from the time I arrived in New Orleans to the time I sat down at my work desk.

I came back during an exciting time, because the Sugar Bowl and BCS Championship game all take place within the span of a week at the Superdome. The Sugar Bowl completely sucked, as it was one of those games you could figure out the outcome after the first few drives by each team. Hawaii showed us why they weren't ranked higher than 10 at the end of the season, despite being undefeated.

It's unfortunate too, because there was a slew of Hawaiians that made the trip for the game. The French Quarter looked like downtown Honolulu the entire week leading up to the Warriors' ass beating. Oh well, I'm sure the entire season was a fun ride, as was having your team's bowl game in a city like New Orleans.

Monday is the BCS Championship game between Ohio State and LSU, and although I've rooted for OSU before (mainly when they play Michigan, because lets face it, no one likes Michigan), I'll find myself being neutral and just hoping for a good game. Please, no blowouts, I don't need another let down like the Sugar Bowl or the International Bowl. (Side note: did anyone think Ball State would stop Ray Rice from running all over our asses? Come on, BSU couldn't stop mediocre QB's from destroying them with the run, what made anyone think we could hold a top-rated RB from doing the same? The BSU football team is like the 2003-'05 Colts - great offense, shitty defense. Change this Brady Hoke.)

I've rambled long enough, but before I take off to enjoy my new cable connection, I'll leave you with a few quick movie reviews from some films I was able to take in between my final Finals and relocation.

American Gangster: An amazing film, from beginning to end. Denzel Washington plays a gangster that takes over his deceased friend's crime syndicate in Harlem. The plot is set in the late 60's, early 70's, and covers the many trials and tribulations of the rise and fall of a crime God. Did I mention Washington sets someone on fire to start the movie? Although that's one of the few violent scenes, this movie doesn't need gratuitous blood and gore to set the tone of what kind of man Washington plays. And the movie is based on a true story, what more do you need? 5/5

Dan in Real Life: Is it me, or has Dane Cook jumped the shark already? I think being cast in comedy-romance movies has hurt his real-life comedy act, because this guy just isn't funny anymore. Go ahead, listen to some of his early stuff from four or so years ago, then open your ears to some of his modern work. Big, crappy difference huh? Thank God Steve Carell is in this to carry it, because Cook just sucks, whether it be a supporting or lead role. This wasn't as much of a comedy as I thought it would be, but it's still a good story and Carell tells it well through his acting. 4/5

I Am Legend: You know when you eat something that has onion in it, and it tastes delicious going down, but five minutes later, you need 20 pieces of gum because the aftertaste is horrendous? That's kind of I Am Legend in a nutshell - the ending kind of makes you wonder if the process was worth it. If I'm left wondering if I liked a movie or didn't like a movie, I usually go with the latter, because no film should leave the viewer with indifference, good or bad. The only redeeming value with this movie is Will Smith's acting, but you probably already knew that. 2/5

Hitman: A choppy, confusing story, told very quickly. Luckily, the character and shooting scenes make it watchable, and somewhat enjoyable (I sound like I enjoy violence from these reviews, but really, I only like it if it's done right, like in American Gangster, or really bad ass, like in Hitman.) If you like the video games the movie is based on or stories about killing machines without emotions, you'll like this. Just don't pay more than two bucks or so to see it, which is the only mistake I made. 3/5

Hope everyones New Years is going great, and that you haven't given up on that resolution to get into or shape or stop shooting heroine.